


Enough for Now

by Odae



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Baby Fic, Eastern Air Temple (Avatar), Family, Fluff, Gen, I don't know how to tag this, I just love the Air Nomads, i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:13:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27216985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Odae/pseuds/Odae
Summary: “There they are,” she said to the baby. “Sky bison. Saying good morning to the world’s newest little airbender.”Her fingers combed through his little tuft of hair, softly, slowly, and the baby’s eyes opened again. To Devi, it looked like he was smiling.“That’s you,” she said.-This is a story about Aang and his mom.
Comments: 41
Kudos: 137





	Enough for Now

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is inspired entirely by [this art](https://pugcrumbs.tumblr.com/post/132573713998/mother-airbender-and-her-son-aang-pre-southern) by [pugcrumbs on tumblr](https://pugcrumbs.tumblr.com/)!  
> And just as an aside, I really love the Air Nomads, and this is my own attempt to do some fill-in for canon. But!! While this is obvi about Aang's mom, it's not a sad fic, you know?? It's not pro-nuclear family or anything. It just is!

The baby was born in the early hours of an autumn morning. Just as the sun peeked over the top of the mountain range, the pressure burst from between laboring thighs, and a cry sounded throughout the room that only stopped once the bundle of new life was lowered into Devi’s arms. 

“A boy,” said Nun Dolma, her eyes soft as she looked over the young woman. 

Devi nodded and pulled back the edge of the yellow blanket that obscured the baby’s face. Her breath caught in her throat at the sight of his soft skin, the puckering of his eyelids over still-closed eyes, the little rise and fall of his chest, the tuft of dark hair at the top of his head. She felt dizzy looking at him, and had to remind herself to inhale.

_Breathe in, breathe out._

Imagine that. An airbender needing air.

She hardly noticed as the other nuns swept up the sheets beneath her and gathered the afterbirth and took themselves away from the room. Nun Dolma only took another second to smooth back Devi’s dark hair, away from the pale blue arrow on her forehead, before she followed the other nuns out. 

Then it was just Devi and the baby. 

A soft _whoosh_ came from outside as a lemur flew by the open window. Its shadow flew across the panels of light on the hardwood floor of the birthing room. Devi turned back to the baby. If any of the other nuns had seen her, they wouldn’t have recognized her. Devi, who talked a mile a minute, who always had to leave the library because she made the other nuns laugh too hard, who could only sit stone-like during morning meditation, had now been rendered completely still by the baby in her arms.

“Hello there,” she said quietly. Her voice echoed back to her in the open, cavernous room. The baby stirred lightly in her arms. “Hello,” she tried again. “I’m Devi. And I—” 

The baby’s small, pink mouth opened in a yawn, slowly stretching, soft and slick. He settled more solidly against the warmth of her breast. Devi smiled down at him.

“And I’m your mother,” she said, her voice almost a whisper. 

The baby’s eyes slowly blinked open and met hers. They were dark, she noticed, dark as the night sky without the moon, and she wondered whether they would stay dark like hers, or whether they might lighten to gray, like the man who was his father. She knew she would not find out.

“You were born today,” she murmured to the baby. “Here, at the Eastern Air Temple.” She smiled again as he blinked up at her, slowly. 

“It’s true,” she said with a nod. Her right hand rose to brush his cheek, and his eyes fluttered closed at the soft touch. “Shh, if you listen carefully, you can hear it.”

Her fingers stayed on his skin as she listened herself, waiting. First there was just the sound of the wind slipping through the trees growing out of the mountainside, and then the chatter of lemurs. But then it came, as sure as the sun rose each morning and fell at night, the soft lowing of the bison calling for their breakfast.

“There they are,” she said to the baby. “Sky bison. Saying good morning to the world’s newest little airbender.”

Her fingers combed through his little tuft of hair, softly, slowly, and the baby’s eyes opened again. To Devi, it looked like he was smiling. 

“That’s you,” she said. 

He looked up at her almost like he understood. Then the wind outside shifted, and he screwed up his little eyebrows and wrinkled his nose, and his chin bobbed like it was about to give a low wail. He only got out a single sob before Devi was pulling down the top of her robe even further. 

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said soothingly. He quieted at the sound of her voice. “I forgot you must be hungry. You’ve had a long journey.”

She sat up a little higher in the bed and pulled out her breast, shifting her hold on the baby to guide his face toward it.

“Now, Nun Dolma said this might take a few tries,” she said to him. She furrowed her brow in concentration. “So don’t worry if we don’t get a latch on our first—” She gasped at the feeling of a tug on her breast. “Look at you!” She grinned down at him, his whole face concentrating on the sole task of drawing milk from the nipple in his mouth. “You’re a fast learner, huh?”

The baby bobbed his head slightly as he ate, and it looked a bit like he might be nodding at her.

“Hmm. Talented, too.”

The latch was discomforting, but Devi didn’t mind. The sensation distracted her from the throbbing in the bottom half of her body. Watching the baby’s face, she breathed in. Stroking the little hand curling up against her chest, she breathed out. It was like the nuns said. All pain was temporary. The nature of the world was impermanence. In a moment, it would pass. 

Cold air breezed in through the open windows, and Devi flicked it away with the barest movement of her fingers. She didn’t want to jostle the baby. Even as she cocooned them both in a warm current, her eyes stayed on his face, trying to memorize the little stranger. His lips were like animals against her skin, his eyes wide with delight, a joy she recognized as her own. 

“I wonder what they’ll name you,” she said as he ate. 

It would be the responsibility of a monk, Devi knew. She would have the baby as long as she could feed him and wean him, and then he would continue on the next step of his journey. Without attachments, but with all the love the air temples could give him. That was how it was for all of them. 

Devi had never known her own mother. Sometimes she looked at the older nuns, the tall ones, the ones with dark eyes and dark hair, and wondered. There was one in particular from the Western Air Temple whom Devi always studied when she came to stop in the east. Her skin was darker, but her face was round and her eyebrows thick, just like Devi’s. 

It never went beyond a general curiosity, however. Devi never felt like she had lost anything by not knowing. If anything, she was grateful for the many nuns who had raised her, Nun Dolma especially, who had bathed her in the springs and fed her fruit pies and taught her how to breathe deeply and feel the wind on her skin. She was grateful for all the love she felt swirling around her.

Devi saw the morning light shining in the baby’s eyes and knew that the monk who raised him would surely love him deeply, too.

Looking into his face, she traced a thumb over the line of his brow, trying to smooth it free. He wore it so heavily, as though he already had great worries in this world. Some unknown burden.

“Shh, little one,” she said, now moving her fingers across his brow and forehead in soft, soothing strokes. “There’s nothing to worry about here.” He coughed against her breast and she pulled him off, wiping his mouth with the corner of the blanket. She tucked him in once again to lie on her chest. His head fit perfectly in the curve of her neck. “It’s just you and me.”

The birthing room was nearly empty but for the bed on which Devi lied and a statue at the other end of the room. Devi saw the baby’s eyes, drifting open and fixing, as much as he could, on the figure, and she looked up to examine it, too. 

“That’s Avatar Yangchen,” she said, her voice filled with reverence, “the last Air Nomad Avatar.”

The baby hiccupped slightly, his eyes only closing for a moment before staying once more on the statue. Devi rubbed her hand on his back through the blanket in which he was still cocooned.

“The next Avatar’s supposed to be an Air Nomad, too,” she told him. Her hand stilled, and she used to her thumb to continue weaving small, soothing strokes against his back. “Maybe you’ll know them.” She grinned, laughing quietly to herself. “I hope it’s a girl. Everyone knows the women Avatars get more done.” 

She looked down at the baby, shifting him slightly to see his face. He stared back up at her with his dark, placid eyes, almost as if he were waiting for her to continue.

“I don’t know, though,” she said thoughtfully. “Avatar Roku—he’s the Fire Nation Avatar right now—Avatar Roku’s old, but he’s only in his eighties. And Avatar Kyoshi—she’s the Avatar before him—lived to be over two hundred years old. So he’ll probably live another hundred years.” She tilted her head down at the baby. “And then you can meet the next Avatar.” She grinned. “Though who knows where you’ll be in a hundred years.”

A small coo blew out of the baby’s mouth as he began blinking, long and slow, and Devi realized he must have been falling asleep. She shifted him slowly, so his head sat in the crook of her elbow, and she could gaze down on him. 

“You could fly all the way to the Fire Nation,” she whispered to him, “and see the dragons breathing rainbows.” His eyes fluttered closed, and she continued, “Or to the Earth Kingdom, to celebrate and bless the Harvest Festival, when they make fried dough filled with red bean, just for you.” She smiled at the little yawn that again came from her son’s mouth. “And you can skim across the open ocean, down toward the south, and see the flying fish turn into giant carp, and the carp into great white seals.” 

His breath evened out and he lay heavily in her arms, and Devi knew he was asleep. He was so still, then, so perfect and small. She knew then that she loved him. That she always would. She had no way of knowing that he would inherit her wide, joyful smile, or her full, cascading laugh, and her penchant for getting out of trouble. But for as long as she lived, she would never forget the glimmer in his eyes, the softness of his skin, or the scent of his sweet baby milk breath. 

“As soon as I can,” she said quietly to him, so softly, but like an oath, “I’m going to take you flying.” She nodded, her decision made, her resolve solidified. “You’ll fly with me for the first time.”

It was a promise she could keep. She knew better than to make a wish for his safety, or to dream of the man he would grow up to be. But she could take him flying. And she could hold him now. In this moment, as a solid weight on her stomach and the rising and falling of a chest that translated to little puffs of air on her bare skin. Right here, right now, like the cold air coming in through the window and the yellow leaves falling from the trees outside, there was the baby, and the love Devi had for him. 

_Breathe in, breathe out_.

That was enough for now.


End file.
